1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for finding product and service related information on the National Information Infrastructure (e.g. the Internet).
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Presently, an enormous amount of time, money and effort is being expended by companies in order to advertise and sell their products and services, and after product purchase has taken place, to provide product related information, product warranty service and the like. For decades, various types of media have been used to realize such fundamental business functions.
In recent times, there has been a number of significant developments in connection with the global information network called the xe2x80x9cInternetxe2x80x9d, which has greatly influenced many companies to create multi-media Internet Websites in order to advertise, sell and maintain their products and services. Examples of such developments include, for example: the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) by Tim Berners-Lee; easy to use GUI-based Internet navigation tools, such as the Netscape(copyright) browser from Netscape Communications, Inc., the Internet Explorer(trademark) browser from MicroSoft Corporation and the Mosaic(trademark) browser from Spyglass Corporation; and the Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) by Mark Pecse. Such developments in recent times have made it very easy for businesses to create 2-D Hypermedia-based Home Pages and 3-D VR Worlds (i.e. 3-D Websites) for the purpose of projecting a desired xe2x80x9ccorporate imagexe2x80x9d and providing a backdrop for financial investment solicitation as well as product and service advertisement, sales and maintenance operations.
Presently, a person desiring to acquire information about any particular product sold anywhere in the world, has had a number of search options available to them. In particular, he or she may attempt to directly contact the manufacturer, wholesaler or reseller by telephone, US mail, e-mail, or through the company""s World Wide Website (WWW), if they have one. In the event one decides to acquire product information through the seller""s WWW site, he or she must first determine the location of its WWW site (i.e. Internet address) which oftentimes can involve using Internet Search engines such as Yahoo, AltaVista, WebCrawler, or the like. This can be a very time consuming process and sometimes lead to a dead end. Once the Internet address is obtained, one must then review the home page of the company in order to find where information on a particular product resides on the Internet. This search process can be both time consuming and expensive (in terms of Internet time) and may not turn up information on the product or service of interest.
In some instances, product brochures bear a preprinted Internet address designed to direct or point prospective customers to a particular Web site where more detailed product information can be found. A recent example of this xe2x80x9cpreprinted Web Addressxe2x80x9d pointing technique is the 1996 product brochure published by the Sony Corporation for its Sony(copyright) PCV-70 Personal Computer, which refers prospective customers to the Sony Web Address xe2x80x9chttp://www.sony.com/pcxe2x80x9d. While this approach provides a direct way of finding product and service related information on the Internet, it is not without its shortcomings and drawbacks.
In particular, when a company improves, changes or modifies an existing Website which publishes product and/or service advertisements and related information, it is difficult (if not impossible) not to change the Internet locations (i.e. Web addresses) at which such product and/or service advertisements and related information appear. Whenever a company decides or is forced to change any of its advertising, marketing and/or public relations firms, there is a substantial likelihood that new Websites will be created and launched for particular products and services, and that the Web addresses of such new Websites will no longer correspond with the Web addresses on preprinted product and service brochures currently in circulation at the time. This can result in pointing a consumer to erroneous or vacant Web sites, that present either old or otherwise outdated product and/or service information, possibly adversely influencing the customer""s purchasing decision.
Moreover, when a company launches a new Website as part of a new advertising and marketing campaign for a particular product or service, any preprinted advertising or marketing material relating to such products and services will not reflect the new Website addresses which the campaign is attempting to get consumers to visit. This fact about preprinted advertising media renders it difficult to unify new and old advertising media currently in circulation into an advertising and marketing campaign having a coherent theme.
In short, the inherently static nature of the xe2x80x9cpreprinted Web addressxe2x80x9d pointing technique described above is wholly incapable of adjusting to the dynamic needs of advertising, marketing and public relations alike.
Thus, it is clear that there is great need in the art for an improved system and method for finding commercial product and service information on the Internet, in a way which avoids the shortcomings and drawbacks of prior art systems and methodologies.
Accordingly, a primary object of the present invention is to provide a novel system and method for finding product and service related information on the Internet, while avoiding the shortcomings and drawbacks of prior art systems and methodologies.
Another object of the present invention is to provide such a system and method, wherein virtually any type of product or service can be registered with the system by symbolically linking its preassigned Universal Product or Service Number (e.g. UPC numeric string) that points to the Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) of one or more information resources on the Internet, e.g. World Wide Websites, related to such products or services.
Another object of the present invention is to provide such a system and method with an improved Internet browser or Internet application tool having both an xe2x80x9cInternet Product/Service Information (IPSI) Finderxe2x80x9d button for entering the xe2x80x9cIPSI Finder Mode of the system when it is depressed, and also a xe2x80x9cUniversal Product/Service Number (UPSN) Searchxe2x80x9d button for entering the xe2x80x9cUPSN Search Modexe2x80x9d when the xe2x80x9cUPSN Searchxe2x80x9d button is depressed.
Another object of the present invention is to provide such a system, wherein, when the system is in its product/service finder mode, a predesignated information resource (e.g. advertisement, product information, etc.) pertaining to any commercial product or service registered with the system can be automatically accessed from the Internet and displayed from the Internet browser by simply entering the registered product""s UPN or the registered service""s USN into the Internet browser.
Another object of the present invention is to provide such a system, wherein, when the system is in its xe2x80x9cUPSN Search Modexe2x80x9d, a predesignated information resource (e.g. advertisement, product information, etc.) pertaining to any commercial product or service registered with the system can be automatically accessed from the Internet and displayed from the Internet browser by simply entering the registered product""s trademark(s) or associated company name into the Internet browser.
Another object of the present invention is to provide such a system, wherein a predesignated information resource pertaining to any commercial product or service having been assigned a Universal Product Number (UPN) or Universal Service Number (USN) can be accessed from the Internet and displayed from the Internet browser by simply pressing its IPSI Finder button and then entering the UPN or USN numeric string into a dialogue box which pops up on Internet Browser.
Another object of the present invention is to provide such a system in which a relational database, referred to as xe2x80x9can Internet Product and Service Directory (IPSD)xe2x80x9d is realized on one or more data-synchronized IPSD Servers for the purpose of registering product and service related information, namely: (i) information representative of commercial product descriptions, the trademarks used in connection therewith, the company names providing and/or promoting such products, the E-mail addresses of such companies, and the corresponding URLs on the Internet specifying current (i.e. up-to-date) Internet web site locations that provide product-related information customized to such products; and (ii) information representative of commercial service descriptions, the service marks used in connection therewith, the company names providing and/or promoting such services, the E-mail addresses of such companies, and the corresponding URLs on the Internet specifying current (i.e. up-to-date) Internet web site locations that provide service-related information customized to such services.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a novel method of carrying out electronic-type commercial transactions involving the purchase of products and services which are advertised on the Internet at uniform resource locations that are registered with the IPSI system of the present invention.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a novel system and method of finding the UPN or USN associated with any particular registered product or service by simply pressing a GUI button on the Internet browser in order to enter a xe2x80x9cUPSN Search Modexe2x80x9d, whereby (i) a dialogue box is displayed on the display screen requesting any known trademarks associated with the product, or the name of the company that makes, sells or distributes the particular product, and (ii) the corresponding UPN (i.e. UPC) number registered with the IPSD Servers is displayed to the user for acceptance, whereupon the Internet information resource is automatically accessed and displayed on the display screen of the Internet browser.
Another object of the present invention is to provide such a system and method, wherein during the UPSN Search Mode, the UPN (e.g. UPC data structure or numeric string) associated with any registered product can be found within the database of the IPSD Server using any trademark(s) and/or the company name commonly associated with the product, and the USN number associated with any registered service can be found within the database of the IPSD Server using any servicemark(s) and/or the company name commonly associated with the service.
Another object of the present invention is to provide such a system and method, in which Website-based advertising campaigns can be changed, modified or transformed in virtually any way imaginable by simply restructuring the symbolic links between the products and/or services in the campaign with the current Website addresses at which Website advertisements and information sources related thereto are located on the Internet.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a novel system and method of automatically soliciting companies to register their products and services within the databases of such IPSD Servers in order that product and service related information of a multimedia, nature (e.g. Websites) registered therewith can be easily found on the Internet by anyone using the system and method of the present invention.
These and other objects of the present invention will become apparent hereinafter and in the claims to Invention